Over the years much has been written about stammering. The quotations and writings on this page are collected from eminent people in the field of speech pathology and medicine. They have all been stammerers themselves so they have a great wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject to share with us. It is worth taking notice of them, the messages they give have consistent themes and are very powerful. They alone could fundamentally change the way you start thinking about yourself and your stammer. They may empower you to take responsibility for your speech and start doing something about your stammer. It is down to you.
"Somehow you must learn to desensitise yourself to the reactions of others and refuse to let people's actual or imagined responses to your stuttering continue to affect your mental health or peace of mind" (Adler)
"Getting over stuttering takes tremendous self-discipline and desire" (Aten)
"There are no quick or magical answers to your stuttering" (Barbara)
"On the whole people that stutter are highly intelligent and capable" (Barbara)
"The stutterer feels at most times apart and different from others in society. He feels that although others also have difficulties in life, they can cope with them and live much easily with their problems. He feels more permanently crippled than others because of the fact that he cannot hide or conceal this speech difficulty, and therefore, he is the constant target of their embarrassment, ridicule and disapproval" (Barbara)
"Accept the fact that you have a serious problem. Stand squarely on both feet, place your shoulders back and begin to earnestly attack your problem" (Barbara)
"Before you begin to follow any specific program for correcting your stutter you must remember that stuttering is your problem and yours alone" (Barbara)
"What actually happens is that the more you cover up and try to avoid stuttering the more you will stutter" (Barbara)
"Most people, believe it or not, would be considerate and sympathetic of your problem" (Barbara)
"Lessen your demands on yourself and on others for perfect speech and total acceptance" (Barbara)
"Stuttering is an anticipatory struggle reaction" (Bloodstein)
"If he forgot he was a stutterer and simply went ahead on the assumption that he would have no difficulty, he would speak quite normally" (Bloodstein)
"The central problem of treatment is not the difficulty of bringing about fluency, but the high probability of relapse; few quick cures are likely to be durable; and in general the most reliable way to achieve a lasting reduction of stuttering is to do it slowly and gradually through a process that enlists the stutterers comprehension of what they do when they stutter, why they do it, and how and why they are capable of altering their behaviour" (Bloodstein)
"The stutterer attempts to force the articulation of his words and speaking now becomes a muscular rather than a mental process" (Bluemel)
"No one but myself improved my speech. Others have helped me by providing information, giving emotional support, identifying bias, etc. but the dirty work of therapy is, and always has been my responsibility" (Boehmler)
"Based on your understanding choose the most appropriate therapy program you can, and work at the program with more consistency, devotion and energy than any other task you've ever tackled. As success is obtained, maintain it with equal vigour" (Boehmler)
"You need to communicate more openly and easily with other people including being frank about your stuttering" (Boland)
"The stutter should be encouraged to talk as much as possible" (Brown)
"Adult stutterers have taken many years to develop their speech problem and their reactions to and emotions regarding it. This type of behavioural-emotional complex will not be changed overnight and we believe the stutterer should be prepared for moments, hours and days of difficulty. We said prepared not excused" (Conture)
"Speech is something produced by the speaker and as such is something the speaker can modify and change" (Conture)
"Avoidance only increases fear and stuttering and must be reduced" (Czuchna)
"Now I am going to ask you to do a strange thing: to stutter on purpose. I know it sounds weird but it works. Why ? Because it helps drain away the fear and it provides a lot of experience practicing the act of stuttering in a highly voluntary and purposeful manner. The more you stutter on purpose, the less you hold back; and the less you hold back, the less you stutter" (Emerick)
"Stutterers are no better or no worse than anyone else, and you would not necessarily set the world on fire if you only did not stutter. You would just talk better" (Emerick)
"The field of stuttering should be recognised as a border area between psychopathology and speech pathology but closer the first of these" (Freund)
"Talking was a highly emotional experience which gave me a feeling of helplessness, failure and defeat" (Freund)
"We all have different personalities and our pattern of stuttering is distinct and interwoven in the unique personalities" (Garland)
"We are all different; what helps one stutterer may not work for another" (Garland)
"Basically there are two principal features of his behaviour that the stutterer can alter. One is the speech behaviour itself and the other is his attitude towards speaking and stuttering in particular. These two aspects are related: one of the ways change of attitude is brought about is by helping the stutterer to experience an ability to modify his speech, and one way in which speech is changed is through the reduction of fear which accompanies a different way of thinking about the problem" (Gregory)
"The adult stutterer enters therapy.... the first thing he must understand is that stuttering as it now exists was acquired over a period of time, and that change is a process which will be gradual not sudden" (Gregory)
"Stuttering is one thing that gets a lot easier if you don't try to hide it" (Guitar)
"Fluency, like confidence comes slowly and slips back from time to time" (Guitar)
"Stuttering is what you do trying not to stutter again" (Johnson)
"Assume an assertive posture-physically be committed to moving forward. Use your body language to advantage" (Johnson)
"Findings suggest that the more a stutterer talks, the better, and the more people he talks to and the more situations he talks in, the better" (Johnson)
"By using a tape recorder you tend to learn faster that your stuttering is, indeed, your own doing, and the changes you can make in what you do are very substantial" (Johnson)
"At some point in the therapy process the stutterer must become desensitised to this stuttering" (Kamhi)
"Every stutterer will have some ups and downs and the course of improvement is seldom a smooth course" (Kamhi)
"The old saying that no two stutterers are alike is undoubtedly true" (Luper)
"Early in my therapy program, I made a startling discovery. Although I had stuttered for years. I really did not know much about what I did with my speech apparatus as I stuttered" (Lupus)
"Struggle and avoidance worsen the problem of stuttering" (Moses)
"Try to maintain eye-contact with your listeners. Looking away severs the communication link with your audience and convinces them that you are ashamed and disgusted with the way you talk" (Moses)
"Be determined to reduce your use of avoidances" (Moses)
"Many stutterers have mistakenly believed that if only the 'cause' could be found, a fast cure would result" (Murray)
"Your fundamental task is twofold: alter your speech behaviour, and bring about positive changes in your self-perception and feelings (Murray)
"Your immediate goal should be to allow yourself to stutter openly and without tension and struggle" (Murray)
"Don't avoid certain words or situations that trigger stuttering. Face them head-on. It's far better to stutter than to avoid speaking situations because the fear of stuttering just compounds the problem" (Murray)
"Stuttering consists mainly of learned behaviour. This behaviour can be unlearned" (Murray)
"By deliberately permitting yourself to prolong the initial sounds of many of the words you will be taking the psychological offensive" (Murray)
"The habitual avoidance of speaking situations and feared words will get you nowhere in the long run" (Murray)
"Stuttering behaviour can be changed. Even though you may have no choice as to whether or not you stutter, you do have a choice of how you stutter" (Murray)
"Stuttered forms of speech can be changed in various ways just as handwriting can be modified. It is this changing of an established habit that requires work" (Neely)
"When you begin to really accept yourself as the stutterer you are, you are on your way to much easier speech and most certainly to greater peace of mind" (Rainey)
"Because you stutter doesn't mean you are biologically inferior or more neurotic than the next person" (Sheehan)
"Fluency is a fair-weather friend that deserts the stammerer when he needs it most" (Sheehan)
"One of the tricky features of understanding therapy with stutterers is that anything in the way of technique to bring about immediate fluency is likely to work at least temporarily" (Sheehan)
"Your stuttering is something you do, not something that happens to you. It is your behaviour-not a condition. There are mistakes you can correct with a little self-study and courage" (Sheehan)
"Many stutterers have learned as I have learned that is possible to stutter easily with little struggle and tension" (Sheehan)
"Your fear of stuttering is based largely on your shame and hatred of it. The fear is also based on playing the phoney role pretending your stuttering doesn't exist. You can do something about this fear if you have the courage. You can be open about your stuttering above the surface. You can learn to go ahead and speak anyway to go forward in the face of fear" (Sheehan)
"The more you run away from your stuttering, the more you will stutter. The more you are open and courageous, the more you will develop solid fluency" (Sheehan)
"A basic feature of stuttering behaviour is that the stutterer is under time pressure to a great extent. The stutterer has to learn how to permit pauses in his speech, to risk the fear of silence, to give himself time to catch his breath to resist the time pressure" (Sheehan)
"You will remain a stutterer as long as you continue to pretend not to be one" (Sheeham)
"One means of satisfying the fear of stuttering is to stutter voluntarily on nonfeared words in all kinds of situations. This has the effect of helping you reduce the pressure that you feel when you try to avoid stuttering, and of enabling you to handle your speech more effectively" (Sheehan)
"Avoidance is the heart and core of stuttering. Avoidance behaviou -holding back-is essential for the maintenance of stuttering behaviour. Stuttering simply cannot survive a total weakening of avoidance, coupled with a concerted strengthening of approach tendencies" (Sheehan)
"Working on my own I set about to eliminate every last vestige of avoidance of words and situations" (Sheehan)
Don't waste your time and frustrate yourself by trying to speak with perfect fluency" (Sheehan)
"Don't ever forget that even if you went to the most knowledgeable expert in the country, the correction of stuttering is a do-it-yourself project. Stuttering is your problem. The expert can tell you what to do and how to do it, but you are the one who has to do it. You are the only person on the earth who can correct your stuttering" (Starbuck)
"The first thing you must become is an honest stutterer" (Starbuck)
"The value of eye contact is the effect it has on the stutterer. It almost forces him to keep the stuttering going forward through the word. It's an assertive behaviour and a positive act. It's hard to withdraw and back off if you are holding eye contact" (Starbuck)
"Alleviating ones's stuttering is ultimately a matter of self-discipline and control" (Stromsta)
"In order to reduce the amount of stuttering you do, you must reduce your fear of stuttering" (Trotter)
"Listening to yourself stutter on a tape recorder is another good way of helping reduce your fear of stuttering" (Trotter)
"The stutterer believes that the most important communication in speech is to avoid stuttering at all costs" (Trotter)
"The stutterer must conquer his own problems - no one else can do the job for him" (Van Riper)
"The more one stutters, the more he fears certain words and situations. The more he fears the more he stutters. The more he stutters the harder he struggles. The more he struggles, the more penalties he receives, and the greater becomes the fear" (Van Riper)
"One of the most important phases of the treatment of the adult stutterer is that which attempts to change the shame and embarrassment that are associated with the act of stammering" (Van Riper)
"The stutterer should develop a conscience which itself will penalise the tendency to avoid" (Van Riper)
"The stutterer must come to know just what he does when he approaches a feared word or situation" (Van Riper)
"By gradually learning to stutter on purpose and without pain the stutterer will lose a lot of the negative emotions that colour his disorder; when this occurs, he'll find great relief" (Van Riper)
"The successful avoidance causes some anxiety reduction. Then, when a similar situation presents itself the need to avoid is even stronger due to the preceding reinforcement. But now, no avoidance is possible. The conflict becomes even greater. And so several vicious circles (or rather spirals) are set into motion" (Van Riper)
"The author knows from his own past experience as a severe stutterer and from his dealings with many other stutterers, that it is better to have a five minute blocking than to avoid a word successfully. We never conquer fear by running away; we only increase it" (Van Riper)
"You must acquire the ability to keep good eye contact with your listener throughout your moment of stuttering" (Van Riper)
"The stutterer must get out of his mind that he can be 'cured' by somebody else" (Wedberg)
"There is nothing wrong inside your body that will stop you from talking. You have the ability to talk normally" (D Williams)
"The speech behaviour patterns that have usually been associated with or identified as stuttering vary from person to person and from time to time with any given person" (D Williams)
"During the process of therapy the stutterer should learn by experience that he can change his speaking behaviour and that he can change his emotional reactions, both to the way he talks and towards his listeners and himself" (D Williams)
"By learning that he has a choice in the way he talks and in the manner in which he reacts, he will come to realise that he can be responsible for the way he talks. He will come to be the kind of speaker who can change the speaking he does" (D Williams)
"Panic, tension, and an overwhelming urgency are the hallmarks of stuttering; they are what you must overcome. Totally resist any feelings of hurry and pressure. Let 'em wait" (J D Williams)
"Your pattern of stuttering behaviour consists chiefly of the things you are doing to avoid stuttering" (J D Williams)
"At times you may totally avoid stuttering by choosing to be absent, by withdrawing from a speaking situation, or while speaking you may substitute a non-feared word for a feared one. This allows you to escape for the moment, but increases the worry about future situations" (J D Williams)
"Keep in mind that... the less you avoid words and situations, the less you will stutter in the long run" (J D Williams)